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jgad1

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Hello SDN. I am a little ahead of schedule as far as my undergraduate course works goes (dual credit stuff in high school) and was considering maybe teaching (junior high or high school) for a year before medical school. Providing my GPAs, MCAT, and other admission criteria are on par with a typical matriculant, would teaching for a year:

1) hurt my chances of getting accepted into medical school?

2) improve my chances of getting into medical school?

Reasoning: my father is a teacher and I have always had a good deal of respect for good teachers. I believe education is important and I do believe that it would give me a good deal of perspective.

Thank you for your time.
 
Teaching before medical school will definitely not hurt you. The extent to which it will help you is arguable. Is tutoring/mentoring a big part of your application? Then teaching will definitely show you have made a concerted effort to focus on this area. However, if this is the first time you are teaching/mentoring/tutoring anyone, the effect may be minimal. While it will diversity your application, it's not a good idea to think that teaching will sway your application by a lot. Just my 2c.
 
Teaching before medical school will definitely not hurt you. The extent to which it will help you is arguable. Is tutoring/mentoring a big part of your application? Then teaching will definitely show you have made a concerted effort to focus on this area. However, if this is the first time you are teaching/mentoring/tutoring anyone, the effect may be minimal. While it will diversity your application, it's not a good idea to think that teaching will sway your application by a lot. Just my 2c.
Thank you for your input. I'm not particularly as concerned with if it will help me or not. I just asked that so I could know more aspects about this potential decision. Again, thank you for your input.
 
It is a good gap year job. One of my classmates did two years before matriculating. TFA is also a favorable job, which doesn't necessarily expect long-term commitment.